Wednesday, November 9, 2016

That Time He Won

For many of the Americans who voted for Donald Trump, this was a chance to say: This doesn't feel like my country anymore.

For many of the Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton, this was a chance to say: America does not seem to think this is my rightful home.

And for the Americans who voted for third-party candidates, or the ones who lost hope when Bernie Sanders was defeated, this was a chance to say: These political parties do not represent me, or my beliefs.

We've created a country where nobody feels like they fit in, and there is a collective responsibility, far bigger than the establishment, to change how we operate on a human level, in our own communities.

If we've curated our Facebook feeds and media diets to align only with our own beliefs, we need to recognize that we are building our own bubbles and then refusing to leave them. If our friends all look and act the same, we need to recognize that we have yet to humanize whatever we deem the "other".

America has not just spoken, it has screamed. We could sit here looking at more data, more polls, and reduce it to some statistics: White men won. Rural Americans won. Blue collar workers won. And we could think about the people of color, the women, the immigrants, who have lost.

Or we could accept that we have fractured ourselves to the point where nobody recognizes the country they live in—one where we are suspicious of our own neighbors and uncomfortable in our own skin.

Then, maybe, we will be able to operate out of something other than fear.